The Role of Voter Registration Purging/Fraud in Kerry's loss of Ohio

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Wed Nov-09-05 04:27 PM
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The Role of Voter Registration Purging/Fraud in Kerry's loss of Ohio

The main reason that Al Gore lost Florida and the Presidency in 2000 was the illegal purge tens of thousands of mostly black voters from the Florida voter registration roles. "The reason" for the purge was that these voters were close computer matches to felons, who by law were not allowed to vote in Florida. Florida's Governor and the private company that he hired to conduct the purge knew that their process would disenfranchise not only real felons, but close computer matches as well. A very effective way to win an election.

I have posted threads on DU postulating that hundreds of thousands of mostly Democratic voters were illegally purged from Ohio's voter roles in 2004 and that this accounted for a net loss of over 40 thousand votes from John Kerry in Cuyahoga County alone. My rationale for those postulations was mostly the huge discrepancy between newspaper reports of new voter registration, compared to official Ohio Secretary of State figures. In the weeks prior to the election, for example, a New York Times report indicated that new voter registration in Ohio was ten times as great throughout the state in Democratic than in Republican precincts. Indeed, these reports provided reason for much optimism that the Kerry/Edwards ticket would win Ohio and the Presidency. But official figures by the time of the November election showed that Republican precincts actually exhibited greater gains in voter registration than Democratic precincts between March and November of 2004.

Subsequently, I tried to contact the NY Times and the reporters who reported the massive increases in Democratic voter registration, in order to see if I could obtain verification that illegal voter purges were indeed conducted, but they would not answer my letters.

Confirmatory evidence of illegal voter purging

Finally I found some good sources that provide a probable explanation and confirmation of my suspicions for much of the discrepancy between the newspaper reports and Kenneth Blackwell's official voter registration figures. The first source was Norman Robbins, leader of the Greater Cleveland Voter Registration Coalition. According to his figures, there were 160,894 new voter registrations received by the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections in 2004, compared to only 31,903 registrations in 2000. This information is fully consistent with the NY Times and other newspaper reports. Yet, the number of Cuyahoga County registered voters for the 2004 election was actually LESS than the number of registered voters for the 2000 election! What happened to all those voters?

That is explained by research conducted and reported by Victoria Lovegren, which is posted at Ohio Vigilance.
The most important finding documented in these reports involves the purging, apparently illegal, of 165,224 voters from Cuyahoga County alone, for no other rationale than that they hadn't voted recently. Dr. Lovegren notes in her report that this practice violates the National Voting Rights Act. This matter is still being investigated. We don't know at this time precisely when these purges occurred, though it was some time between the 2002 and 2004 November elections. Perhaps the most troublesome aspect of these reports is that the purging appears to have been done discriminately, that is, with no specific criteria for who would be purged. This could account for the great discrepancy between the newspaper reports of massive increases in new Democratic voter registration and the reality that Republican precincts actually outdid Democratic precincts in increases in registered voters during 2004 if the purging was targeted at Democratic precincts (Cuyahoga County of course is heavily Democratic). This would be consistent with numerous findings from John Conyers' House Judiciary Committee Report, Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio, which related numerous instances of targeting Democratic voters for disenfranchisement. Of equal concern was the fact that thousands of these voters were not notified that their registration was purged, and therefore they were not able to take steps to correct the problem until they were notified on Election Day that they weren't eligible to vote.

Dr. Lovegren's report also notes numerous other issues of serious concern, including the following:

Registration applications being rejected because they lacked a date of birth, even though the applicant was not told that this needed to be included.

Insufficient staff to deal with all the applications for voter registration, despite repeated requests for additional staff.

Requests for absentee ballots not responded to.

Hundreds of long time voters missing from the voter roles

Phone lines were jammed on Election Day, so that most inquiries about how to handle voter registration issues could not be addressed adequately.

The public was not allowed to watch the provisional ballot verification process.

Numerous voters did not receive provisional ballots as required by law.

Numerous dirty tricks aimed at disenfranchising Democratic voters.

Conclusion and continuing efforts

Dr. Lovegren's reports provide confirmatory evidence that illegal purging targeted at Democratic voters may have cost John Kerry tens of thousands of votes, or even enough to cost him the election even without the assistance of other mechanisms of election fraud. She continues to investigate this issue, recently having submitted an official request to the Cuyahoga County BOE requesting detailed information on voter registration data, including registration cancellation date and justification for the cancellation.

With all the concern about the electronic manipulation of votes on Election Day we must not lose sight of the fact that voter registration data also can be manipulated, and that this may very well have cost both Al Gore and John Kerry the Presidency. This process too is highly computerized and privatized.